


The Truth Can Set You Free (Can It?)

by amuhseen



Series: Assassination Classroom Fics [7]
Category: Assassination Classroom
Genre: Akabane Karma is a Little Shit, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Karma and Nakamura need to face the consequences of their actions, Suicidal Thoughts, Truth Serum, basically me ranting about how Nagisa's trauma is brushed under the rug, characters may be ooc, if you're a karma or Nakamura fan then don't read this because it isn't for you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 11:46:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25849024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amuhseen/pseuds/amuhseen
Summary: “But I never say anything because I know that no matter what I say or how uncomfortable I am, it won’t really stop anything in the long run, so what’s the point, you know?”Okuda makes a truth serum to help with an assassination attempt. When the two resident devils decide to give it to Nagisa, no one was ready for what would happen next.
Relationships: Class 3-E & Shiota Nagisa
Series: Assassination Classroom Fics [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1797424
Comments: 15
Kudos: 199





	The Truth Can Set You Free (Can It?)

**Author's Note:**

> So if you follow my tumblr, you know that whilst Karmagisa is my OTP, I'm not the biggest fan of Karma - or canon Karma, at least. I just hate the way he treats Nagisa and it really grates my nerves how he never is forced to deal with how terrible of a person he can be. So here are over 4K words of Nagisa standing up for himself in a way he never would in canon.
> 
> It's based off of this post I made: https://snakeboistan.tumblr.com/post/623384334709178368/warning-angst-ahead

The Tokyo sun shone brightly through the windows of the 3-E building, rays of golden washing over the wooden down desks and chairs. The students in the classroom were spending their morning before homeroom as they always did: by chatting away to one another or just minding their own business. The atmosphere of the room was quickly burst when they heard thundering footsteps making their way towards the doorway. Every single head turned towards the classroom’s entrance to find a panting Okuda appear under it, braids swaying and glasses slightly askew.

“I did it,” she announced, “it took me all weekend but I did it.”

“Uhh, what?” Okajima asked, scratching his head.

“Wait,” Fuwa paused, head perking up as if realisation dawned on her. With a widening smile, she asked, “you mean the thing.”

Okuda nodded her head and Fuwa beamed. She raced towards the bespectacled girl and glomped her in a hug, “Oh, Okuda, you scientific genius.”

Okuda turned red and smiled shyly at the praise. Around her, everyone else had no idea what on Earth was going on.

“Hey, mind filling the rest of us in?” Maehara inquired.

“I came up with a brilliant idea for an assassination attempt and asked Okuda to cook something up that would make all of our lives far more easier,” Fuwa explained with a smug grin, “Let history say, children, that being an otaku saved the planet.”

“What did you make, Okuda?” Kurahashi asked, head tilted in confusion.

“Yeah, come on Okuda, tell them,” Fuwa nudged her.

“I-well-I made a truth serum,” she mumbled, cheeks dusted with pink.

“WHAT!”

“Are-are you serious?” Kimura asked in disbelief.

Mimura’s eyes were wide, “like an actual, real-life truth serum?”

Okuda nodded timidly as she pushed her glasses up her nose.

“That-that’s awesome,” Maehara stated, “like seriously, that’s so unbelievably awesome.”

“Can we see it? Can we see it?” Okajima begged, rushing towards her and jumping up and down like an overeager puppy greeting its owner.

“Sure,” she replied. She opened up her bag to procure a box. Clicking up the lid, she reached in and then held up a test tube that was half-way filled with a shimmering emerald liquid liquid. The entire class looked at it with awe.

“How the hell did you manage to make that?” Yoshida asked, still unable to believe what he was hearing.

“Well all I did was mix a few centimeters cubed of ethanol, scopolamine, 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate, midazolam, flunitrazepam, sodium thiopental, amobarbital and a few other chemicals.”

Everyone just stared at her.

“So, is no one going to comment on how she just happens to have all of those chemicals?” Sugaya said.

Maehara shrugged, “Eh, she’s Okuda.”

“Yeah, she carries around actual chloroform with her at all times,” Mimura nodded, “at this point, it’s best to not question it.”

“But seriously, guys this is awesome,” Okano grinned, “imagine if we slipped that into some of his favourite sweets. We could make him tell us _anything._ Unless he’d manage to sniff it out.” She turned to Okuda, “he won’t be able to, right?”

Okuda shook her head, “he shouldn’t. I made sure that the serum is completely odourless.”

“Haha, yes,” Okajima fistbumped the air, “by the end of the day he’ll be telling us everything we need to know about how to assassinate him. That ten billion yen bounty is OURS.”

As the class cheered, celebrated and praised Okuda for her genius, a certain blonde troublemaker sat at her desk and was watching the commotion in thought, leaning her cheek on the back of her fingers. Slowly, a sly smirk crawled onto her mouth.

* * *

Karma was in the forest when Nakamura approached him. He spotted her from a mile away from where he was perched on a tree branch, blonde hair bouncing with every leaping bound she took, that ever-present Cheshire cat grin on her face. He watched with amusement and intrigue as she made her way towards him, immediately getting hit with the idea that the two of them were going to have a _very_ interesting day today.

“Yo, Nakamura,” he called, “aren’t you a long way from class?”

“It’s break,” she supplied from her position at the base of the tree, “besides I can say the same to you, mister.”

“As if the octopus could teach me more about algebra than I already know,” he said haughtily as he jumped, landing gracefully on his feet in front of her, “at this point I only show up for the assassinations. Actually going to class would be a waste.”

“Ohohoho,” Nakamura smirked, “betcha I can change that thought.”

“What do you mean?”

It was then that Nakamura held out a hand that she had hidden behind her back, opening it up to reveal a familiar looking test tube.

“Is that…?”

“Uh hu.”

“How did you get it.”

“I have my ways.”

“No kidding.”

“So, Karma,” Nakamura smirked, blue eyes alight with mischief, “what do you say to a bit of fun?”

Karma grinned, horns and tail appearing out of nowhere as the satanic aura around him intensified, “what do you mean?”

“Ohh, you know,” she hummed, her voice had an ‘innocent’ lilt as she shook a vial that contained the green liquid with her thumb and index finger, “just giving this bad boy to our favourite prank victim. Can you imagine all of the dirt we could get out of him? Who he likes, embarrassing secrets, all of the tea he has - it’ll be a goldmine.”

“Ha, perfect,” Karma laughed, “God, could you imagine what we could make him spill? We’ll make that little mouse squeak like there’s no tomorrow.”

The two of them burst into ungodly snickers, doubling over as woodland creatures ran for their lives, as far away from them as possible. Giving each other looks filled with perversity that would make a necromancer faint, they set their plan into motion.

Shiota Nagisa had no idea what was coming for him.

* * *

As soon as the bell rang, signalling that class was over and lunch break had begun, the students rushed towards the door, most of them practically shoving each other as they piled out of the classroom and towards the wooden lunch tables that were situated outside of the building. Nagisa, as usual, was the last to leave due to him being the slowest packer in the class. Plus, he had a tendency to talk to his desk neighbours, Sugino and Kayano, as he put his things away, which slowed him down as well. However, for some reason, Nakamura had decided to stay behind with him, telling him that she wanted to speak to him in private. So before he could sling his bag over his shoulder, he was dragged out by the golden-haired girl into a secluded storage room, where they kept all of the unused Science and Home Ec equipment. There she proceeded to drill him about whether he had a crush on anyone or not, stating that she had a bet going on with Karma. He tried to tell her that he currently wasn’t interested in dating anyone and that he held no romantic attraction towards any of his classmates but she wouldn’t let up until he managed to stealthily push his way past her and back to the classroom so that he could retrieve his school bag and make his way towards the building’s exterior. Once he reached his destination, he was met with Sugino waving an arm to catch his attention.

“Hey, Nagisa,” he called, “I saved you a seat.” When the blue-haired boy sat down beside him, he asked, “so what was that all about?”

“Oh you know,” Nagisa rolled his eyes, “Nakamura being Nakamura.”

“I see.”

With that, he took out his bento box and opened the lid but before he could grab a piece of his hand-made lunch, he paused. Something inside Nagisa felt weird as a sense of foreboding fell over him. He had no idea why but it felt like his senses were warning him of something, that something was wrong. However, he had no idea what. Scanning the environment, he observed that everyone was acting normal: Fuwa was recounting the latest chapter of her current manga obsession to anyone that would listen, the Terasaka gang were debating whether or not cereal counts as a soup, Hayami and Chiba were doing that thing they do where they communicate with their eyes and the slightest movements of their heads, Maehara and Okajima were engaged in an arm wrestling competition that would determine who would be given Yada’s spare wagashi and Karma and Nakamura were huddled together laughing about something. To be honest something about that felt off, especially since they seemed to be stealing glances in between smirks and snickers, but those two working together always filled him with dread since he was the main casualty of whatever prank they’ve cooked up - but there was something about their current behavior that felt more off than normal, their conscious wavelengths held a form of threat that made him feel apprehensive...

“Hey, Nagisa?” Sugino asked, concern evident in his eyes and in the furrow of his eyebrows, “you alright, man? You seem to be on edge.”

Mentally shaking off that strange feeling, Nagisa gave his best ‘I’m-okay-please-believe-me’ smile, “ye-yeah, I am. I just - just got lost in thought, you know?”

To ease the baseball lover’s worries, he pinched one of his pieces of shrimp tempura sushis with his chopsticks and brought it to his mouth, before chewing slowly and swallowing. It was at that moment he knew that something was definitely wrong. As soon as he felt his food go down the oesophagus and land in his stomach, he knew that there was something very very wrong. His body froze, chopsticks slipping through his paralysed fingers and landing on the grass, as he lost awareness of his surroundings. Dread was crawling up his spine and rushed through his nerves, sending them ablaze with this feeling of numbness. The last thing he registered was his stomach dropping before his surroundings blurred and all of his thoughts turned to mush, leaving him unaware of the way Sugino’s eyes widened with fear when he watched Nagisa’s face slacken into an emotionless stare, bangs falling forward as head hung itself over his bento box.

“Nagisa,” he shoved his shoulder, “HOLY C***, NAGISA!”

His shouting had alerted the rest of his classmates, each of them immediately turning their heads to face the pair. 

“Did he eat it?” Nakamura crowed from her seat, face split into a beaming grin. Beside her, Karma gave Nagisa a cocky smirk, as he regarded the used chopsticks in the blunette’s hand “did he actually eat it?”

“What do you mean?” Sugino asked desperately, frantically shaking his head as he looked at his best friend and the blonde, “what did you do?”

“Karma, Nakamura, what’s the meaning of this?” Kataoka demanded. Everyone had no idea what to do; no matter how many times Sugino shook him or Kayano tapped him on the shoulder, his face remained expressionless as his body swayed like a ragdoll. All of the light and energy that inhibited his eyes, the warm emotions that screamed ‘Nagisa’, had vacated, leaving only desolate orbs of blue nothing. For someone like Nagisa, who was always observing, always hyper-alert of his surroundings, to start acting like a lifeless marionette was troubling to say the least. Nonetheless, there seemed to be two students who were hardly concerned.

“Chill, guys. He’s alright. Cool it, would ya?” Karma said easily as he waved a hand up and down in a careless manner. 

“What did you do?” Kataoka asked sternly.

“We just wanted to test if Okuda’s little serum actually works.” Nakamura shrugged with a mischievous smirk, “you know, just to be sure. What’s the harm in doing a little science experiment?”

“You-you did what?” Okuda asked shakily, horror-struck at the revelation. She made that serum for an assassination attempt, so that she could help save the Earth, yet Nakamura and Karma decided to give an untested concoction to her classmate just to get a few laughs. As confident as she was in her abilities as a chemist, she was aware that she’s not perfect and four times out of ten her experiments end up in a complete disaster. At least, if her serum wasn’t made correctly, Koro-Sensei would’ve been able to handle it the same way he can handle all of the other poisons she made that could make a sumo wrestler drop to his knees in a second. She warned the class that she wasn’t sure that it would work, yet these two pranksters took her work as another way they could have a laugh - and on Nagisa as well. Nagisa, who was sweet and kind and always smiled and made her feel included, who always praises her when she does something right and doesn’t laugh when others make mistakes, who never complains about anything. Koro-Sensei told her that being unable to communicate properly means that people will take advantage of you, yet Nagisa, who always seems to know what to say, somehow appears to be the person who is exploited the most. She felt- she felt _tricked_. Like that time where Koro-Sensei smiled at her and gave her instructions so that she could make a poison that could actually work for him but she ended up enhancing his abilities instead. However, at least then it was all with good intentions, so that she could learn how important it is to communicate, unlike now where her skills were used to poke fun at someone else. Science is all about progression, it’s about working hard to ensure that the world becomes a better place so that people can be happier, healthier and have a better way of life. That’s why she pursues it because if she can’t help people with her words, then she can at least help them with her chemicals. Her voice came out high as she whispered, “Why would you do that?”

“Oh, come on, Okuda,” Nakamura waved her off, “it was just a little prank.”

“A-A prank?” Okuda repeated, unable to comprehend how on Earth these two could be so callous, “you used my formula for a _prank_?”

“Alright, guys, I think that you two have gone too far,” Maehara tore his eyes away from the petite boy in pigtails and glared at the two smirking devils with his arms crossed.

“Yeah, guys,” Okano said, “I mean your usual pranks are one thing but drugging your classmate so that he could spill his secrets? Not cool.”

Kayano had moved from trying to gain Nagisa's attention to comforting Okuda, who seemed to have fallen into a well of guilt. Her plaits hung limply as she held her head down, her back was shaking with shuddering breaths and her hands were bunching up the pleated grey material of her school skirt. Meanwhile, Sugino’s shaking seemed to have awoken Nagisa from whatever daze he was in and his head snapped up. He blinked at them sporadically as he shook his head - it almost seemed as if he was rebooting. The light didn’t return to his eyes but he seemed to be more aware of everyone. Then, out of nowhere, he smiled. Not one of his usual soft smiles, filled with care. It was just a _smile_ , plain and simple. It was lazy and devoid of any real emotions and it looked so so _so_ wrong on the boy that was the epitome of helpful. 

“Hey, Nagisa,” Sugino said slowly. Everyone else was watching and waiting with bated breath.

The blunette turned to him and the baseball lover almost flinched at the expression on his face. This wasn’t Nagisa, this was some fraud, an unappealing copy failing miserably at impersonating his best friend. He didn’t know whether to scream or cry or throw up but he did know that he wanted Nagisa back, pronto, “hey, Sugino. What’s the matter?”

“Me?” he blinked in confusion, “I feel great. Well, honestly I’m kind of ticked off that I got drugged but, you know, not the worst thing that’s happened to me. I’ve hidden tons of things that are far worse than this but I guess since it’s normal for me to suck things up, I don’t really much. I mean I know I always say that I’m okay when I’m really not but that’s just because I don’t want to burden you guys with something as insignificant as me.” He could feel something in the back of his mind telling him to say that he was fine but why should he do that? What’s the point in lying when he could just free the chains that held him down and just blurt out everything that came to mind. “But I never say anything because I know that no matter what I say or how uncomfortable I am, it won’t really stop anything in the long run, so what’s the point, you know?” 

Everyone looked at him in shock; most of his classmates' faces were covered in expressions of horror and sadness but why were they upset? He was just being honest and, truthfully, he wasn’t upset one bit. How could he be when every word that left his mouth made him feel even more euphoric than he’s ever felt before? His head was flying up high in cloud nine and he never wanted to go down. Unbeknownst to him, the majority of his classmates didn’t share his newfound state of elation.

“Holy s***,” Terasaka whispered as he stared at Nagisa as if he suddenly grew four heads and was breathing fire.

“It-it worked,” Kimura stated dumbly, “the truth serum - it actually worked.”

“The dude’s got no filter whatsoever,” Maehara observed.

Karma and Nakamura’s eyes widened as they looked at each other before snapping their gazes back towards the blunette, who was still smiling away as if he hadn’t said more words in the past minute than he had over the past few hours.

“This. Is. Brilliant,” Nakamura squealed, “Oh my god, this is too good.”

“Nakamura, that’s enough,” Isogai reproached. He turned to Okuda, “Okuda, how long will this serum last for?”

Okuda bit her lip, eyes glistening, “about an hour. Isogai, I swear I didn’t do anything. If I knew that the serum was going to be used on Nagisa-”

“It’s okay, Okuda,” Yada smiled at her reassuringly, “you were only trying to help us assassinate Koro-Sensei.”

“Yeah, you have no part to play,” Okano was still glaring at the pranking duo, “they’re the ones who thought it would be funny to give Nagisa a goddamn truth-serum.”

“What’s the big idea? I don’t see why you guys are all p***ed off,” Nakamura said defensively.

“Yeah, we’re just having fun,” Karma said, “we always prank Nagisa and he’s fine with it.”

“You guys seriously don’t think that you did anything wrong,” Sugino frowned, “you really think that this is just another harmless prank. Although, to be honest, most of the things you do to Nagisa aren’t exactly harmless.”

“What do you mean by that, Sugino?” Karma narrowed his eyes at the baseball lover, giving the black-haired boy a sneer, “He’s never complained that he doesn’t like what we do.”

“Yeah, come on,” Nakamura scoffed, “he’s alright with us dressing him up, right Nagisa?”

“I hate it,” Nagisa said, still smiling with compliance, “I hate everything about it. Whenever I see the two of you come up to me with whatever new idea you’ve come up with, I get physically sick to my stomach with dread because I know what will happen next. You guys will dress me up and make jokes about how pretty I look and how I should ‘cut it off’ even when I tell you that stuff makes me uncomfortable. Of course, me being uncomfortable is never an issue with you lot so why do I even bother. I know that I’m always smiling and laughing when you all make fun of my looks and laugh at my insecurities but I hate it. I hate it so much and whenever I’m forced to crossdress all I can think about is my home life because, guess what, you’re not the only one who thinks I look good in girl clothes. I’ve been forced to wear them since I was six and I’ve learned that speaking up about it only ends in trouble. In hindsight, I’ve got to say that you guys calling something that causes me to get slapped and shouted at by my own mother ‘comic relief’ is kind of a s****y move but, hey, nevermind I get it - my feelings are a joke to you anyway.” He just blinked at his classmates, who were all staring at him with their mouths open and eyes wide with horror. Yada and Kurahashi had hands slapped over their mouths and looked near tears. He had no idea why they were looking at him like that - all he did was answer a question. Was he not supposed to? He didn’t see why he couldn’t divulge that information. Nagisa shouldn’t have secrets. What’s so great about hiding things anyway? He noticed that the delinquent smirks were wiped off of Karma and Nakamura’s faces and were replaced by uncomfortable squirming. He tilted his head in confusion, “why aren’t you laughing? You always laugh when it comes to my appearance. Don’t look so upset, that’s so unlike you. Go ahead and laugh and joke like you normally do - nothing I’ve said has stopped you before, why should it stop you now?”

“Nagisa,” Sugino breathed out, aghast, “what-I-what?”

“You’re mom does _what_?” Okano whimpered.

“Oh yeah, she hits me,” Nagisa replied as if he was just discussing the weather. His legs were swinging back and forth as he continued, “and starves me, or locks me in my room if I don’t listen to her. Sometimes she throws things at me. I mean, last week she aimed a frying pan at my head but luckily I managed to dodge. Living in my house for fourteen years really enhances your reflexes, you know. She basically wanted a daughter and hates the fact that I’m a boy so she pretends that I’m a girl so that she can live in her perfect world with her perfect daughter that she always wanted. It sucks, but hey, that’s life, you know.”

“The hell?” Maehara said to himself, “what the hell?”

“That’s awful,” Kurahashi said, tears streaming down her face, “why would - why would anybody?”

“Holy c**p,” Kimura’s head was leaning against the palm of his hand.

“Karma, Nakamura,” Isogai’s eyes held fire, “why on earth would you think that giving him a truth serum is okay?”

“How the hell were we meant to know that he was going to spill all of that?” Nakamura yelled at the onslaught of glares, “we just wanted to find out if he liked anyone or something.”

“Guys, I think that we should stop asking Nagisa questions,” Sugino said wearily, “he can’t control what he’s saying and if he had any willpower there’s no way he’d be comfortable in spilling all of this stuff.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Nagisa asked.

“What?” 

“What’s wrong with me being uncomfortable?”

“Listen Nagisa, I know that we messed up,” Kataoka said, “seriously seriously messed up. But trust us when we say that making you uncomfortable is not something that we want to do.”

“Of course not,” Yada cried, “you’re our friend. We love you.”

Nagisa laughed, it was sweet yet sounded artificial, “no one loves me. All I do is drive people away. You can ask my dad or Karma about that. Trust me, whatever it is you think I am, I’m not. I’m just a burden that only causes trouble. No one would want to be friends with me. Even when they say that they are.” He turned to Karma, “‘cause you know Karma, sometimes you really confuse me. You act like my friend now but you pretended like I didn’t exist back at the main campus. Like I get why you don’t like me - not even my own parents do. I guess you do need me around because I’m the guy that collects information on Koro-Sensei but if you’re just going to get bored with me and abandon me again can you atleast do it now instead of getting my hopes up that you actually care about my feelings. Like seriously, between you and dad, I have a ton of abandonment issues. I guess it’s only a matter of time before everyone else leaves me too, huh. Don’t look so upset Sugino, I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to not be around a loser like me.”

“Nagisa,” Sugino’s eyes were brimming with unshed tears, “I would never. You’re my best friend, dude.”

“Please tell me that the hour is nearly up,” Okajima begged to the heavens, “I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

“We’d never leave you, Nagisa, never,” Kayano cried as she hugged Nagisa from behind. He could feel her shaking in her embrace, “you’re the best friend I could ever ask for.”

“We don’t just have you around because you’re useful or anything,” Maehara said, “bro, you’re an amazing person.”

“I just can’t believe this,” Yoshida said, deeply troubled, “like seriously, what other things are there about you that we don’t know about.”

“YOSHIDA, NO!”

“YOU IDIOT-”

“I’ve tried killing myself,” Nagisa said brightly, cutting into their shouts like a knife and dropping the temperature of their surroundings, “back during the whole grenade incident. I didn’t know that the grenade was fake and was a hundred percent ready to blow myself up and end everything right then and there. I mean, I was actually kind of happy to finally get an escape from everything and it’s not like anyone would’ve missed me or anything. So I would’ve saved the world and done something I’ve been meaning to do. You can understand my disappointment when Koro-Sensei saved me. Now I have two failed attempts - man, I’m so good at failing, I can’t even kill myself right.”

“Wait,” Okano’s face was white, “did you just say ‘two’?”

“Hmm, yeah, I tried once when I was ten. My parents were getting divorced and were fighting more and more and I knew that it was all because of me and I hated myself for driving them apart so I decided that it would be in everyone's best interest if I wasn’t around anymore so I overdosed on some of my dad’s sleeping pills. Unfortunately, it didn't work as you can tell but -”

He was then cut off by Maehara, who had decked him in the head, knocking him clean out.

“MAEHARA!”

The golden-haired boy was shaking, “I-I’m sorry, guys. It’s just that - I couldn’t take it anymore. I just wanted it to stop.”

Isogai placed a hand on his shoulder, giving his best friend a weak smile, “it’s alright, Maehara. I understand. Come on, let’s lay him down in the teacher’s lounge so that he can sleep this off.”

“We are going to speak to him about this, right?” Okano asked.

“I think that we should,” Kataoka replied solemnly.

“Well, I think that we ought to give Nakamura and Karma a few words as well,” Kayano said, “seeing as this is all their fault.”

Everyone watched as Isogai picked Nagisa up in a bridal carry. The tense silence had made them all lose their appetite.


End file.
